Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Heritage, CPAC, and Stolen Underwear

One of my favorite friends from
college was Scott. He was (and likely remains) outrageously funny, smart, and
sarcastic, and we lived in the same dorm for two years running. Our second year,
having abandoned his loutish roommate, he moved all of his belongings into our
second floor lounge and squatted there until the custodians locked him out of
the room, but that’s a totally different story for another day. Scott came to
St. Lawrence University from the Deerfield Academy boarding school, a
tradition-rich WASP haven in New England whose motto is “Be worthy of your
heritage.” We got several weeks into our first semester at SLU when Scott
copped to the fact that he couldn’t do laundry, so we tromped downstairs to the
basement of Reber Hall (rut roh!) where I meticulously explained the nuances of
Tide and bleach. He had a look on his face that basically said: Isn’t this what
we pay people to do? but I endeavored on. I was expounding on an astonishingly
wide variety of underwear folding techniques when I stumbled upon a pair of his
boxers that had the Deerfield motto and crest on the front, and on the tush was
written: “Where the hottest party is the Grand Old Party.”

So I stole Scott’s underwear.

Look, I was a Government major from
DC, Reagan was in office, and this just killed me. All of my tee shirts and
printed clothing read leftie things like: “Experts agree! Meese is a pig!” so
finding something that was so gung-ho Republican was both totally different and
really funny. I still have the boxers, and take them out when I’m feeling blue
and need a laugh. This may be one of those boxer weeks, actually.

Anywho, I was reminded of Scott’s
underwear after my star-student Antonio sent me this cartoon about the future of the GOP in regards to the Invisible Primary. The Republican Party may very
well remain the hottest at Deerfield but they seem to be losing their way off-campus,
in no small part to their steadfast devotion to their own heritage. Since the
cartoon references yet another Bush (that would be Jeb), we will begin with him
and then get to the other members of the Sonnenkinder (that one’s for you Adam
Rapp!).

We’ve heard a whole bunch from Jeb
Bush lately, thanks to the release of his book “Immigration Wars” and the
ensuing press tour that landed him on the Sunday morning chat shows. Since it
seems fairly straight-forward that one I.P. technique is to write a policy book
and hawk it to hell, Jeb was asked repeatedly about his 2016 prospects which
brought this rejoinder to David Gregory of NBC: “Man, you guys are crack
addicts. You really are obsessed with all this politics.” Umm… Jeb? Did you
miss the briefing about what the Sunday morning shows are about? Because I have
it filed away on my computer in my “patently obvious” file, right next to the
documents titled “Congressmen want to be re-elected” and “Chocolate is
delicious!” Back to his book, which is on immigration: His TV sales pitch led
to a slew of headlines about whether or not his new immigration stand makes him
more in-line with the GOP, a flip-flopper, or a back peddler. But this really
was subtext for the big question about his 2016 intentions, and he added fuel
to the fire by saying he would not rule anything out. Crack addicts indeed.

Moving on to CPAC, since the
conservatives arrive in DC this week for their annual bacchanal, the conference
program is out and the speaking times have been listed by The Atlanticright here. Sen. Ted Cruz gets to speak for the
longest amount of time (33 minutes) and after that, my girl Sarah Palin is
allowed 16 minutes. Trump, Jindal, Paul, Perry, Rubio, Walker and Ryan each get
just over 10 minutes each. I’m not sure if this means too much, but it does
give insight to who the cool kids are on the right wing of the GOP. And only at
CPAC does Donald Trump count as “cool.”And... Sarah Palin gets more time than the rest of those folks? Really? Moving on....

Speaking of Sen. Rand Paul, his
filibuster last week (the 9th longest in history, apparently)
garnered much I.P. attention, not only because he kept the floor for so long
but also because he got great press because of it. Even though a few Republican stalwarts (Sens. John McCain and
Lindsey Graham most notably) criticized the effort as “ridiculous,” Paul gained a ton of support from the likes of House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, former
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and GOP strategist Steve Schmidt among others. We
already knew that Paul the Junior has his eye on the 2016 prize and would lean
forward into any spotlight, but as my favorite Uncle, Larry the Libertarian,
notes: What made this special was the boost that Paul got from social media. According
to the WaPo, Twitter was on fire with more than a million Tweets. Nicely noted,
Uncle! It was this social media attention that brought what our marvelous
Nicholas noted to be even more Senate attention from another I.P. favorite,
Marco Rubio. Much jockeying for attention, Invisible Primary candidates! Well
played!

And so now we double back to the
conundrum facing the Grand Old Party: Being worthy of your heritage is not the
same as being accessible to the electorate. That seems to be the biggest
problem facing the Republicans as they march towards 2016. As Bill O’Reilly
noted on Election Night (in terms far more crass than this) you can no longer
win an election with just the WASP establishment behind you. You can bet your
Gin & Tonics that the lack of ethnic diversity will be problematic for a
party that is struggling to re-define itself, since Rubio and Jindal are the
two clear exceptions to the white-guy rule seen in our I.P. front runners. But that
said, into this void comes a bit of intellectual diversity where Paul in
particular doubles-down on the libertarian strain of conservatism. We see this attention
to the far right in the CPAC run-down, which (as noted) very specifically
excludes a more moderate Chris Christie. Don’t yell at me – I know the “C”
stands for “Conservative,” but still. The right wing of the Republican Party is
hoping to add a little heat to the GOP.

3 comments:

Paul certainly must take his show on the road. I am into hour #4 and needless to say, if his ideals are truly what he stated in those 13-hours, he is a viable candidate for more the traditional GOP. His sentiments on rights and liberties are throughly enforced by history and moving America from self-importance to self-evidence. He earned more time at CPAC...

A fair point.But the Meese shirt was cobbed from renegade posters that were mysteriously and anonymously plastered all around DC with that saying on it. In fact, a bike messenger was wearing an "Experts Agree! Meese is a Pig!" shirt to the Justice Department and they wouldn't let him in. It was in the Wash Post for DAYS. Here is a sample:http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1980&dat=19880602&id=xoAiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aqoFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1248,950926